AIMS & SCOPE

Nowadays, most aspects of our daily life are affected by pervasive technology, consisting of massive numbers of heterogeneous components (e.g., devices, software applications, smart objects), featuring complex interactions among them and, possibly, with humans. Modern distributed systems are governed by collective and cooperative schemes; they leverage intelligent mechanisms to manage deployment, operation, coordination, and evolution over time. These systems are characterised by dynamic and adaptive interactions between various entities and their environments, in order provide services that help achieve specific goals.

Collective systems have to be equipped with dynamic and autonomous adaptation capabilities, to deal with changes in their working environments and within themselves. Collective systems are also collective systems as they involve huge collections of cooperating components, trading off individual tasks with overall system goals. Cooperative systems are characterised by their level of distribution, the underlying mode of interaction and the degree of autonomy of the entities. Resources are also harnessed and marshalled across dynamic and heterogeneous environments in order to realise synergies between humans and systems.

In pervasive environments, for example, symbiotic relationships and seamless transitions are initiated and maintained, within secure and trusted environments. Effective cooperation requires that autonomous systems and their components overcome environmental heterogeneity and resolve semantic differences. Adherence to common abstractions and models facilitates the unfolding of processes such as data and system integration, coordination of behaviour, resource access and sharing, and participation in complex activities. In managing the differences between entities, systems and environments, a range of methods and techniques are called upon to support interoperation and facilitate semantic interoperability. Resource and process management, configuration, adaptation and negotiation define a wide spectrum of cooperation, from reactive behaviour to proactive intervention. These tasks are being enhanced by ontologies, context awareness and self-configuration.

The development of collective and cooperative is closely related to other contemporary software engineering approaches, such as self-adaptive systems, component-based systems, service-based systems, middleware platforms, as well as other areas of Computer Science, such as Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Agent-based Programming, Pervasive Computing, Internet of Things, and Autonomic Computing.

This track aims to provide them with a common forum for discussing their different viewpoints and for sharing ideas. On this very subject, the aim is to attract relevant and consistent contributions from many different research communities. In particular, of interest to the track are both foundational views (e.g., theories, methods, formalisms, models) and practical aspects (e.g., development methodologies, programming languages, middleware, development and runtime environments, tools). Moreover, also applications of CAS solutions to real-world case studies are welcomed.

• Novel models, languages, programming and implementation techniques for collective adaptive systems
• Formal aspects for collective adaptive systems
• Self-* and emerging properties of collective adaptive systems
• Middleware platforms for collective adaptive systems
• Knowledge Management and Decision Process Support for collective adaptive systems
• Context-aware and adaptive management for collective adaptive systems
• Domain-specific Modeling and Languages for collective adaptive systems
• Maintenance and evolution for collective adaptive systems
• Software architectures and software engineering techniques for collective adaptive systems
• Reverse engineering and re-engineering for collective adaptive systems
• Testing, verification, and validation for collective adaptive systems
• Security, trust and privacy management for collective adaptive systems
• Collective adaptive system emerging technologies and infrastructures: IoT and Cloud
• Requirements for cooperative systems
• Architectures for cooperative systems
• Context-awareness in cooperative systems
• Managing trade-offs in cooperative systems
• Engineering frameworks for cooperative systems
• Resource management and brokering in cooperative systems
• Ontologies and knowledge representation in cooperative systems
• Autonomous and emergent behaviour in cooperative systems
• Arbitration, argumentation and negotiation in cooperative systems
• Self-configuration, self-optimisation, self-protection and self-healing in cooperative systems
• Adaptation models in cooperative systems
• Security and privacy in cooperative systems
• Trust and reputation in cooperative systems
• Mediation and conflict management in cooperative and autonomous systems
• QOS and policy management in cooperative systems
• Cooperative systems for service provision and management
• Cooperative systems for resource management
• Cooperation in ubiquitous and pervasive environments
• Cooperation in social networks and P2P community systems
• Aggregation and composition of cooperative services
• Dependability in cooperative systems
• Scalability and efficiency issues cooperative systems
• Tools and environments for engineering cooperative systems
• Middleware support for cooperative systems
• Personalisation an recommendations systems in human-system cooperation
• Symbiotic relationships in cooperative systems
• Cooperative systems in e-science, e-commerce, e-government and e-learning
• Scenarios, case studies and experience reports of collective adaptive and cooperative systems

IMPORTANT DATES

• Sept 15, 2017: Papers and SRC research abstracts submission
• Sept 25, 2017: Papers and SRC research abstracts submission (EXTENDED)
• Nov 10, 2017: Author notification
• Dec 9, 2017: Camera-Ready copy
• Dec 10, 2017: Author registration

PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS

PROGRAM COMMITTEE MEMBERS

PROCEEDINGS

Papers accepted for the Special Track on Collective and Cooperative Systems will be published by ACM both in the SAC 2018 proceedings and in the Digital Library.

PAPER SUBMISSION AND FORMAT

All papers should represent original and previously unpublished works that currently are not under review in any conference or journal.

The author(s) name(s) and address(es) must NOT appear in the body of the paper, and self-reference should be in the third person. This is to facilitate blind review. Only the title should be shown at the first page without the authors' information.

Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper/poster in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper: This is a requirement for the paper/poster to be included in the ACM/IEEE digital library. No-show of scheduled papers and posters will result in excluding them from the ACM/IEEE digital library.

Submission is entirely automated via the STAR Submission System, which is available from:

• (for regular papers) https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2018/submission.html
• (for SRC papers) https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2018/submission_src.html

POSTER SESSIONS

Papers that received high reviews (that is acceptable by reviewer standards) but were not accepted due to space limitation can be invited for the poster session. Poster should be not longer than 3 pages (included in the registration) plus 1 extra page (at extra charge), i.e. total 4 pages maximum. The poster session procedures and details will be posted on SAC 2018 website as soon as they become available.

STUDENT RESEARCH ABSTRACTS COMPETITION

Graduate students are invited to submit Student Research Competition (SRC) abstracts (maximum of 2 pages in ACM camera-ready format) following the instructions published at SAC 2018 website. Submission of the same abstract to multiple tracks is not allowed. All research abstract submissions will be reviewed by researchers and practitioners with expertise in the track focus area to which they are submitted. Authors of selected abstracts (up to 20 students) will have the opportunity to give poster and oral presentations of their work and compete for three top-winning places. The winners will receive medals, cash awards, and SIGAPP recognition certificates during the conference banquet. Invited students receive SRC travel support (US$500) and are eligible to apply to the SIGAPP Student Travel Award Program (STAP) for additional travel support.